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Friday, September 11, 2009

9/11: National Day of Remembrance - washingtonpost.com: "andy Scott: Projects are taking place in every state -- here are a few examples -- In Boston, hundreds of volunteers will fill care packages and write letters to military personnel serving overseas. Volunteers in New Hampshire will collect and bag 7,000 dental supply kits for Manchester school children. More than 9,000 volunteers are expected to turn out today for projects in Seattle including habitat restoration and neighborhood cleanups and renovating a child care center."

Slow economy sparks nonprofit collaborations - New Mexico Business Weekly:: "There is a growing mantra in the nonprofit world to explore collaboration and cooperation these days, perhaps even mergers, in light of the economy. It’s one of the main ideas behind the new New Mexico Office of Philanthropic Outreach as well. Nonprofit leaders have not seen any mergers yet, but they’re hearing lots more talk about cooperation."

Thefts jeopardize ride for charity - The Boston Globe: "They were not ordinary, recreational bicycles that could be so disposable. They had been primed and tuned in the name of charity, ready for a challenging 65-mile-a-day trek from New York to Washington, D.C., to help raise awareness for a cause."

For Flight 93 memorial, long-awaited progress - USATODAY.com: "Eight years after terrorists hijacked United Flight 93 and crashed it in the western Pennsylvania countryside on Sept. 11, 2001, the memorial to the 40 passengers and crew who fought against them looks more like a roadside shrine than a national park, a homemade expression of patriotism and sorrow nestled in a rural expanse."

In the face of the worst recession in decades, on-air fundraising for public television and public radio stations around the country has held steady and in some cases has set records, the Washington Post reports."

Sweet Charity: Sharon Stone, a Sizzling Do-gooder -- chicagotribune.com: "Stone has raised millions for amfAR with her legendary auctioneering powers, but she is involved in a number of other charities, including Planet Hope, co-founded with her sister, Kelly, and also 'Homeless Not Toothless'--a nonprofit organization that provides homeless patients and foster children with free dental care. Brentwood dentist Dr. Jay Grossman started this up."

So you've joined the board of a nonprofit where you care about the mission and the work, you think you can be useful, and you like some of the people you'll be working with--the ones you've met so far. What do you do next in order to be productive?

This Friday, September 11, marks the eighth anniversary of the attacks on America as well as the inaugural National Day of Service and Remembrance. Friday caps off the “United We Serve” initiative, a summer dedicated to addressing community needs in areas such as education, health care, energy independence, and economic renewal."

Helping others takes countless forms and springs from countless motivations, from deep-rooted empathy to a more calculated desire for public recognition. Social scientists have identified a host of ways in which charitable behavior can lead to benefits for the giver, whether economically via tax breaks, socially via signaling one's wealth or status, or psychologically via experiencing well-being from helping. Charitable organizations have traditionally capitalized on all of these motivations for giving, with a recently emerging focus on highlighting the mood benefits of giving—the feelings of empowerment, joy, and inspiration that giving engenders. Indeed, if giving feels good, why not advertise the benefits of 'self-interested giving,' allowing people to experience that good feeling while increasing contributions to charity at the same time? HBS doctoral candidate Lalin Anik, Professor Michael I. Norton, and coauthors explore whether organizations that seek to increase charitable giving by advertising the benefits of giving are making claims supported by empirical research and, most importantly, whether such claims actually increase donations."

Donations break record | The Collegian — University of Richmond: "Online fundraising made the difference on both ends of the equation, Peters said. Volunteers sent 24,000 personalized e-mails in June alone, which likely exceeded the number sent during the previous 11 months combined. When one message toward the end of the month announced that only 247 donors were needed to set a record, that night, 170 alumni made donations online. Online credit card payments have almost quadrupled during the past two fiscal years."

Endowment sees record number donations : Kansan.com: "In a year of budget cuts at the University of Kansas, alumni are opening their wallets to help more than ever before. The number of donors and total donations to the Kansas University Endowment Association hit record numbers last fiscal year, according to a KU press release on Tuesday."

Mistakes nonprofits can’t afford to make: "Nonprofits are notorious for making some common marketing missteps that can cost in the long run. They are easy to fix with a little thought and commitment by the board and staff."

Getting Clients To Focus On Philanthropic Goals - Forbes.com: "Philanthropy has evolved from simply supporting your college alma mater and church to being a strategic way for clients to positively influence the world they and their children will live in. Through informal and formal structures, such as family foundations, donor-advised funds and giving circles, clients are becoming more highly engaged in philanthropy. As advisers, we can provide valuable insight and planning advice to help our clients become more strategic and focused in their philanthropy, and to help us forge deeper relationships that get at the heart of our clients' long term goals."

How to find a career in fundraising: "Actively pursuing a career in fundraising and development may seem a bit uncertain during this economic climate. It’s common knowledge that nonprofits are typically hit hardest in economic downturns as many consider donating a luxury, not an obligation."

New Report Tracks Obstacles to Outsourcing Administrative Tasks - Philanthropy.com: "Many organizations are under-investing in their infrastructure and in their back-office functions,” says Rick Moyers, director of programs at the Meyer Foundation. “If a group is not spending enough money on something in the first place –- or in some cases they’re not spending any money on it –- then they’re not going to be able to save any money by hiring someone else to do it.”"

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Wealthy Donors Keep On Giving - Forbes.com: "Despite managing through the worst economic conditions the U.S. has seen since the Great Depression, high-net-worth individuals are still committed to charitable giving. In fact, in many cases, they are now more generous than in years past, according to results of a survey of 500 high-net-worth and ultra-high -net-worth individuals in the U.S. and U.K. conducted by Barclays Wealth and Ledbury Research. Click here to view the complete survey results."

A few years back, when I was at the Forward, we were looking for an angle to cover Ronald Stanton's $100 million gift to Yeshiva University (the size of the gift would have been angle enough, had Y.U. not understandably decided to give an exclusive to The New York Times). What we came up with was the fact that in addition to his support of the flagship institution of Modern Orthodoxy, Stanon was also a major backer of Manhattan’s Heschel School, a pluralistic Jewish day school."

Tufts said the gift - the fourth-largest in the university's history - will be used to support and expand undergraduate programs geared toward leadership in the engineering field, including an expansion of project-based learning outside the classroom and the creation of an engineering leadership minor, focused on teaching students motivational and team-building skills."

Times - they are changing - News: "UMKC has an average endowment per student of $16,000, compared to a $66,000 average among peers, which translates to philanthropy being a small portion of funding.

'That's a little bit shocking when we are in a city that has more philanthropy than any other city in the world,' Morton said. 'So that just says we have a lot of opportunities, but it also says that we, as a university, need to do what it takes to have this community appreciate our value.'"

Mr. Harrison is the founder of Charity: Water, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing clean water to impoverished villages in Africa. In January, he got an e-mail from a British woman who wanted to test Twitter as a fundraising tool. Amanda Rose thought the microblogging site, with its 30 million users, might have some cash power, and if it did, she wanted to put the cash in Harrison’s wells."

Since 2005, BGC Partners, an inter-dealer brokerage firm spinoff of Cantor Fitzgerald, has held Charity Day, where celebrities like Yogi Berra, Donald Trump and Walt Frazier stop by the firm and raise money for New York City non-profits."

Lynda Resnick: Doing Well by Doing Good -- Together: "It was heartening to discover than many businesses, despite their own financial hardships, are recognizing this fact. I learned this during my interview with Terry Kellogg, CEO of 1% For The Planet, a nonprofit whose sole purpose is to help businesses help the environment by providing a third-party seal of authenticity for their philanthropic efforts -- a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for the 21st century, if you will. One percent of total sales may not sound like a whole lot, but let me assure you that it can amount to quite a commitment, especially for businesses struggling during the economic downturn."

massnonprofit.org ::: "September 3, 2009 — Feeling that the current recession is not the time to host a gala fundraiser to celebrate its fortieth anniversary, the New England Aquarium instead opted to engage with the local community through a series of free “Community Nights” which culminated last Sunday, drawing 2,000 people of Caribbean origin to one of Boston’s premier visitor attractions."

September 4, 2009 — Massachusetts nonprofits serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, under strain due to the recession, and state funding cuts of 26% in the current fiscal year means many are relying more on volunteers while working overtime to handle more clients."

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Nation Rallies Around First Official 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance | Reuters: "NEW YORK, Sept. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- With President Obama planning to formally declare September 11th for the first time as a federally recognized National Day of Service and Remembrance at the urging of the 9/11 community and Congress, thousands of organizations around the nation -- nonprofits, employers and faith based groups and others -- are already mobilizing hundreds of thousands of Americans to engage in service and perform good deeds in observance of the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks."

Plain Dealer Living News - Cleveland.com: "They typify recession-era newcomers that David Holmes has been seeing more frequently at his grant-writing classes at the Foundation Center Cleveland. 'We've had a lot of career changers,' said Holmes. 'Some are thinking, 'This is something I've always wanted to do, and now I have the opportunity to do it.' '

Yet leaders from the nonprofit world say this is no time for novices to leap idealistically into their sector."

In its first six months, the group has held cookouts and social hours for the residents of retirement homes and raised thousands of dollars for the Senior Source, a nonprofit agency that serves older adults in North Texas."

Big Tasks for Richard Buery Jr., New Head of Children’s Aid Society - NYTimes.com: "There are a few things about Richard R. Buery Jr. that made him a novel choice to lead the Children’s Aid Society. He is 37, almost 30 years younger than the man he will replace. He is the first black person to run Children’s Aid. And he has spent much of his professional life building organizations from scratch, not taking over established ones with venerable, 150-year-old reputations."

The board does the work of the organization and manages as well as governs it. This is typical of a board in the 'founding' stage of an organization and of boards in organizations, such as service clubs, that have no staff and that must rely largely on board members and other volunteers to achieve their aims. Operational boards also have management responsibilities but are distinguished from management boards by their lack of staff support.

Desperately Seeking Grants Can Lead to Identity Crisis | KeysNews.com: "Nonprofit board members play an important role in seeking funding from foundations. Board members can utilize their connections to make phone calls to friends or colleagues to move the proposal along. Also, nonprofit boards have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure the organization fulfills the grant requirements, such as raising matching funds and allocating organizational resources. Policies may need to be adopted regarding compensation of professional grant writers. Industry standards set by the Association of Fundraising Professionals Code of Ethical Principles does not allow its members to receive fees based on a percentage of contributions, but members may accept performance-based compensation."

Camp Hill's $15 million donor sees herself as 'an old lady who likes children' - PennLive.com: "In January 2006, she stunned the Camp Hill School District, and its residents, by donating $15 million to the district's nonprofit Lion Foundation for the creation of a performing arts center, hoping to enhance music, dance and the visual arts in the borough's schools. Her gift is one of the largest individual donations to a school district in the state, according to the Mid-Atlantic Consortium of Education Foundations. The arts center will feature a rounded two-story glass atrium, amphitheater and a walkway between it and the school."

Unlike his predecessor, who sought to maximize the institution's potential as a visitor attraction and business enterprise, Clough is intent on building up the Smithsonian's science, research and educational impact beyond its walls."

Yale Daily News - Yale’s donor dollars dwindle: "Yale raked in gifts totaling about $439 million between July 1 of last year and June 30 of this year, Vice President for Development Inge Reichenbach said this week. That number fell far short of the roughly $600 million Yale had raised the year before and short of the more than $550 million Yale had brought in on average in each year since 2004, when the silent phase of its capital campaign, Yale Tomorrow, began.

Reichenbach said it is unlikely that things will get better this year, the fourth since the official launch of the campaign."

Los Angeles Charities Rarely on Hollywood’s ‘Must Do’ Lists - NYTimes.com: "While big companies and their leaders have historically helped out their hometowns in a pinch, out of benevolence or for bragging rights, Hollywood has been playing a relatively minor role in the civic life of Los Angeles, preferring national and international charities, say political leaders and many who care for those in need in the city."

Meaningful mud - Macomb, IL - Macomb Journal: "While standing knee deep in mud, hundreds of Western Illinois University students splashed and spiked their way to raising money for the Macomb Fire Department last weekend."

The ASPCA, along with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Maddie’s Fund, filed suit this week in New York Surrogate’s Court to intervene in the matter of the late Leona Helmsley’s $5 billion estate. The suit seeks to overturn an earlier ruling that allows the Helmsley Trustees—those responsible for issuing charitable grants from the estate—to disregard Mrs. Helmsley’s specific instructions that her wealth be used to help dogs."